About the Monkey Puzzle Tree

The Araucaria lineage first appeared roughly 200 million years ago, during the Triassic period. Dinosaurs were already roaming Pangaea. The Atlantic Ocean didn't exist yet. These trees watched the dinosaurs flourish through the Jurassic and Cretaceous, and then catastrophically depart. They survived ice ages, continental drift, and volcanic apocalypses. And now they live in front gardens in Basingstoke.

The term “living fossil” gets thrown around a lot, but the monkey puzzle genuinely earns it. Its closest relatives are the Norfolk Island pine and the Wollemi pine, which was thought extinct until 1994, when someone found a stand of them hiding in an Australian canyon. Araucarias are survivors. It's what they do.

The monkey puzzle arrived in Britain through an act of what can only be described as diplomatic napkin theft. In 1795, Scottish surgeon-botanist Archibald Menzies attended a formal dinner hosted by the Governor of Chile. Seeds from the local “pehuen” tree were served as part of the dessert course. Menzies, recognising their botanical significance, quietly pocketed a handful.

He nurtured the seeds throughout the long voyage home. Five seedlings survived and were planted at Kew Gardens. A 200-million-year-old species had arrived in Britain because a Scotsman nicked some nuts at a state dinner. The rest is horticulture.

The real invasion came in 1849, when plant hunter William Lobb was dispatched to Chile by Veitch Nurseries in Exeter with specific instructions: bring back monkey puzzle seeds. He returned with thousands. The Victorians were ready.

The Victorians went absolutely wild for monkey puzzles. Exotic, architectural, impossible to ignore: the tree became the ultimate garden status symbol. Owning one declared that you were a person of taste, means, and botanical ambition. It rivalled the conservatory, a good set of aspidistras, and a well-stocked fernery.

Every respectable estate wanted one. Then every large garden. Then every suburban villa. The trees were planted enthusiastically and without any particular regard for what a 40-metre conifer might do to a 10-metre plot over the next century and a half. This oversight would prove significant.

The monkey puzzle got its common name at a dinner party. Around 1850, at Pencarrow House in Cornwall, the owner was showing guests a recently planted young specimen. Charles Austin, a noted barrister, examined the fearsome spiralling branches and declared:

“It would puzzle a monkey to climb that.”

The name stuck. Never mind that no monkey has ever encountered one in the wild. South America has plenty of primates, but they live in tropical forests, not the cold, volcanic highlands of the Andes where monkey puzzles grow. Never mind that the species already had a perfectly serviceable name. A barrister made a quip at a dinner party in Cornwall, and a 200-million-year-old tree was renamed after a hypothetical primate scenario.

Here is the thing about monkey puzzle trees: they get big. Very big. A mature specimen can reach 40 metres tall and live for over 1,000 years. The average British front garden is approximately 10 metres long. You can see where this is going.

Those fashionable Victorian saplings are now enormous. They tower over houses. They block out the sun. They drop cones the size of coconuts. And because monkey puzzles are protected by Tree Preservation Orders in many local authorities, you can't just remove them. You chose this tree. (Or more accurately, your great-great-grandparents chose this tree. You just inherited the consequences.)

This creates a peculiarly British dilemma: a genuine affection for an extraordinary tree, combined with the practical reality that it is slowly consuming your house.

Monkey puzzles have attracted their fair share of folklore. In some parts of Britain, it's considered bad luck to pass one without saying “good morning” or “good afternoon.” The origins of this belief are obscure, but given that the trees predate human civilisation by roughly 199.7 million years, one could argue they've earned the courtesy.

There's also a tradition that monkeys (again, hypothetical ones) would become stuck in the branches if they tried to climb down. Some hold that the devil himself sits in the tree. Others maintain that planting one brings good fortune. The trees themselves offer no comment.

Despite their ubiquity in British gardens, monkey puzzles are in serious trouble in the wild. The IUCN classifies Araucaria araucana as Endangered. Logging, fire, and habitat loss have devastated native populations in Chile and Argentina.

The situation contains a grim irony: the cultivated population in British gardens keeps growing, while the wild population in its native Andean forests keeps shrinking. The species that survived 200 million years of geological upheaval is being undone by human activity in a matter of decades.

In Chile, the tree is known as the pehuen and is sacred to the Mapuche-Pehuenche people, who have sustainably harvested its nutritious seeds for millennia. Conservation efforts are ongoing, but the species remains under threat.

The Anglo-Chilean Society has long celebrated the deep cultural, historical, and botanical connections between Britain and Chile, a relationship in which the monkey puzzle plays a starring role. Through their Monkey Puzzle UK project, the Society maintained a register and map of notable monkey puzzle trees across Britain, documenting each specimen with the kind of meticulous, slightly obsessive attention these trees so clearly deserve.

Their work was pioneering. Long before smartphones had GPS or anyone had heard of “citizen science,” the Anglo-Chilean Society was doing exactly what we do now: encouraging people to find, record, and celebrate the monkey puzzles hiding in plain sight on Britain's streets, gardens, and estates. Their register preserved the locations and stories of trees that might otherwise have gone unnoticed, except, of course, by the people whose gutters they were slowly consuming.

Monkey Puzzle Watch is the spiritual successor to that effort. We may use smartphones instead of notebooks and satellite maps instead of Ordnance Survey sheets, but the fundamental impulse is identical: an irresistible urge to find, document, and celebrate every monkey puzzle we can. We are proud to carry on the tradition the Anglo-Chilean Society established, and we encourage anyone interested in the broader story of Chile's extraordinary trees to visit Monkey Puzzle UK.